[chickensong]

FWIW, I enjoyed and agree with your thoughtful comment, and found the response disappointing. Having known privately-owned mom-and-pop businesses, I can confirm not everyone is out for profit at all costs, even in America. For some, it's enough to make ends meet doing something you're passionate about.

[stavros]

> I can confirm not everyone is out for profit at all costs, even in America

Definitely, I didn't mean to imply that every business in the US wants to profit at all costs, I just meant that the culture skews towards that. The US culture towards work tends to have a certain response to cases like one where someone has a popular product/service/business but would rather maximize work/life balance than income.

In other cultures, that's seen as much more of a reasonable choice than in the US, where the response tends to be more on the "I can't believe you're giving up tons of profit for more free time!" or similar.

[chickensong]

No offense taken, I totally get it. As an American, I think we're pretty screwed up in our priorities, on many fronts. I hope we all (globally) can figure out how to slow down and work less! Life's too short to spend so much time grinding for money.

[WalterBright]

You are arguing with "at all costs" which I never wrote, and so do not feel any need to reply to that.

Mom and pop businesses definitely do it to make money. They aren't charities. They pay taxes on the money they make. And if they don't make money, what are they going to live on?

Non-profits are not out to make money, but (again) they are not considered businesses.

[the_af]

Nobody argued pop & mom ("and larger") businesses don't strive to make money, the argument was that that's not their only goal.

We're arguing against your "at all costs" because you did imply it. Maximizing money earned at the cost of employees well being and happiness is ONE way of making money, but not the only way. You can earn money but not seek to maximize the money at the cost of burning out employees, for example.

[WalterBright]

Then you're arguing with yourself, because I never wrote "at all costs" nor did I imply it. It's your (rather ridiculous) strawman.

Consider I want to enter a marathon with the intention of winning it. Do you think that implies I want to club the other athletes so I can win "at all costs"?

[the_af]

But that's the kind of argument you're making by dismissing opinions that e.g. clubbing other athletes since winning is the most important thing is bad, and that if we don't like it we should "join a commune".

Others have already explained that while a business must make money, that's not always the most important thing, there are competing goals (not excluding money, but sometimes as important).

And if you didn't understand the original comment by stavros, then he clarified what he meant. So now you have the chance to stand corrected: he meant making money at the expense of all else, including worker happiness. This point has been made more than once already, you cannot have missed it.

[WalterBright]

> if you didn't understand the original comment by stavros, then he clarified what he meant

I understood his original statement, and did not impute additional meanings into it. None of you have accepted that I did not write "at any cost".

> clubbing other athletes since winning is the most important thing is bad, and that if we don't like it we should "join a commune".

And there you invented YET ANOTHER strawman to bash me with.

Frankly, I'd like you to produce a clever argument that challenges me. Using logical fallacies, like strawmen, is kinda boring. It's easy enough to google the list of logical fallacies, and then you'll be able to avoid them and it'll be much harder to dismantle your argument.

[chickensong]

Yes, we all know the basic requirements of business.

The replies to your comment are push back against your attitude of "biz make money, don't like it join a commune", in the context of grinding up employees.

We're saying there's a middle ground, where some businesses will sacrifice some profit in exchange for taking care of their employees, instead of treating them as disposable.